


Two

by Anonymouslazycat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Bruce Banner Has Issues, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multiple Personalities, Only Partially Real-Life Compliant Frankly, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Partially canon-compliant, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2019-07-08 07:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15926150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymouslazycat/pseuds/Anonymouslazycat
Summary: After many long years, Bruce Banner has done it. He's found a cure.But some things, as it turns out, never change.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know I didn't come up with this prompt. It probably came from a Livejournal comment from like...five or six years ago. So in short, I ain't tracking it down.

“Stark’s here”

“What? Clint answered, from his bed in SHIELD medical. A mission gone wrong had broken his leg again. At least thanks to Nat the fucker still got his ass handed to him. “No way is Stark here. He hasn’t even _contacted_ SHIELD since New York. Hell, going by news coverage, I don’t think he’s hardly left his _house_.”

Natasha glanced back out the door again. “It’s definitely him,” she said. “He’s got half the suit on and is arguing with a nurse.”

“Arguing? Sounds like Stark.” Clint eased himself into a sitting position, wincing. He was getting too old for this. “Can you tell what he’s arguing about?”

“Something about…Banner?” She frowned, almost imperceptively. “Banner’s here too. Stark wants to see him.”

“What about?”

“I think they got in a fight. It sounds like Banner’s hurt pretty badly.”

“This may sound insensitive, but I didn’t know he could _get_ hurt. Doesn’t the Hulk just…y’know?”

“As far as I know, yes.” She looked down the hall again. “Shh. He’s coming this way.”

She straightened up and put on a blank face as Tony came down the hallway. “Stark.” she said politely as he approached. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Didn’t expect to _be_ here. What happened to fly-boy over there?”

“Some bastard pushed me off a roof,” Clint said. “But I got him back good.”

Natasha gave him a side-eye, but said nothing. Both were preoccupied with Tony’s appearance. Not only did he have the unmistakable signs of sleep deprivation and stress, but he was also sporting an impressive black eye. What he still wore of the Iron Man suit was covered in smears of dirt and even a little bit of what looked like blood. He kept glancing distractedly down the hallway.

“Something on your mind?” Natasha asked sweetly.

Tony crossed his arms, attention back on her. “What’s it to you?”

“Cut the crap, we know Banner is here.” Clint interjected. “And we know the doctors aren’t letting you see him.”

“How’d you know that?”

“No offense, but your voice carries.” Natasha said.

Tony sighed and rubbed his forehead. He wasn’t being his usual guarded self, Clint noted. Whatever happened must have really shaken him. “Yeah, he’s here. And hell if I can explain what happened. Just that something went really, really _wrong._ ”

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_

_Earlier that day…_

 

“I can’t believe I’m helping you with this.” Tony grumbled. “Driving a beat-up car to the desert in the middle of nowhere isn’t exactly how I planned to spend my morning/”

“This is important.” Bruce reminded him. “If it works, we save a lot of lives.”

“Would we though? Most of the people Hulk’s gone after were Ross’s goons. Not exactly a huge loss.”

Bruce gave him a Look. “They’re still _lives_ , Tony. As far as I’m concerned, even _one_ is one too many.” He took out a small glass bottle and a syringe. “Now, I took the serum at 6 P.M last evening, so it should have had time to take full effect…”

“Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. It can _not_ have been a fun night.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Fair enough.” He paused briefly. “Still, injecting yourself with an untested, home-brewed chemical in the hopes it would ‘cure’ you? I don’t even think _I_ would do that.”

“’Once again. I’ve done worse.” Bruce shrugged. “At least this time I knew the needle was sterile.”

“Wait, _what?_ You’ve shot yourself up with weird shit before, not even knowing if the _needle_ was _sterile_? And people say _my_ safety practices are off.”

Bruce ignored him. “Anyways. The serum should have had time to have full effect. An injection of adrenaline…”

“Also not fun.”

“…should be a good test of whether or not it worked. If it did, we can all go back home. If not…” He pointed at Tony. “You keep the ‘other guy’ contained until I…come back. Think you can manage that?”

“Pfft. Easy.”

“Don’t underestimate him, Tony.” Bruce warned.

“It’ll be fine! Look, Jolly Green and I are _buddies_. And I’ve got a suit on. Fresh from my shop. New and improved.”

“Just…be careful.”

Bruce filled the syringe, tapped it, then slipped off his glasses and tucked them away inside the glove compartment. “Ready?” he asked.

“Ready.”

With a surprisingly swift motion he jabbed the needle into his thigh, squeezing his eyes shut as it pierced the muscle. He leaned over the car hood for support as it began to take effect, chest rising and falling much more rapidly than usual. His face was turned away so Tony couldn’t see his eyes, but there was no trace of green anywhere else. _Damn, he really had done it_.

“You all good?” Tony asked. “Can we go n…” he trailed off as Bruce turned towards him and Tony could clearly see his expression. It didn’t look like Bruce’s normal, placid face. This was…something else. Something animal.

And then Bruce _howled_ , a booming sound that Tony didn’t think even know the mild-mannered scientist could make. In fact, it sounded more like…the Hulk.

Oh.

_Shit._

Tony began to put the pieces together just as Bruce charged at him, fists clenched and eyes wild. Except…it wasn’t Bruce. Or it was. Or it wasn’t? There was no way he’d act like this normally, but his body hadn’t changed…

It didn’t take long to realize the major problem with this scenario. Bruce sent a fist swinging at Tony, hand hitting metal with a sickening _crack_ , then stumbled back howling in pain. _His body hadn’t changed._ Tony would be fine, he had a suit made to withstand just about anything. But that just meant Bruce was at even more risk if this kept going.

“Easy now, easy.” Tony said, holding his hands up in a way he hoped was pacifying and not threatening. “You know me, remember?”

Bruce appeared to be listening, standing with his chest heaving and one hand cradling the other. He looked down at it, trying to move his fingers, grimacing in pain. A low growl sounded from his throat, forming one word. “ _Banner.”_

“Yeah, that’s right.” Tony coaxed. “You’re Bruce Banner, and he’s not exactly invulnerable, y’know? So if you could just…”

He was interrupted by another booming roar. “NO BANNER! NO!” Bruce readied his fists again only this time they were aimed at _himself_.

“Shit! No! Stop that!” Tony rushed in to try and hold Bruce back from this sudden bout of self-destructiveness, but he soon realized that that was an equally bad idea. Bruce kept thrashing, trying to get away, pulling against Tony’s grip so hard that it seemed to pose an imminent threat to his shoulder sockets. Tony tried immobilizing him in what could only be described as a full-body bear hug, but the tighter he held the more Bruce struggled, growling and panting and screaming. It wasn’t going to calm him down, Tony realized. Time to switch tactics.

He let go and Bruce staggered away, looking side to side for his next target. He focused in on the only other object around- the beat up car they had driven there. Bruce charged into it with a full-body slam, cracking the side window. _Thank god for safety glass,_ Tony thought, wincing sympathetically. It was still bad enough without glass in the mix- Bruce had fallen to his knees, and was cringing with every breath. He still, however, had it in him to growl as Tony approached.

“Stay there, buddy. Don’t try that again. Seriously, you’ve done enough damage as is.”

At first, Bruce seemed to be miraculously settling down. But then, he made another sudden lunge at Tony, rage only increased by pain. Over and over, he slammed his fists into anything he could get to- the car, Tony, _himself._ This wasn’t working. Much longer and he might end up breaking something that couldn’t be fixed- if he hadn’t already, Tony thought as he looked at Bruce’s hands. Tony had to do _something_. But what? If only there had been tranquilizers in the car, but they hadn’t bothered to bring any because they wouldn’t work against the Hulk. Not under usual circumstances anyways. Gentle words were clearly not the answer. And Bruce certainly wasn’t going to calm down on his own any time soon.

Tony cringed. There was only one thing he could think of to do. Unconsciousness was a surefire way to stop the Hulk. And inducing it…well, there was really only one way right now.

“I hope you forgive me for this, pal.” Tony said, holding down his struggling friend. “I _really_ hope you forgive me.”

And then he pulled his own fist back and hit Bruce squarely in the head.


	2. Chapter 2

Bruce woke up with a groan. It hadn’t worked. Another failure. All that, for nothing. The thought of it was almost worse than the pain radiating throughout his body.

Almost.

He eased his eyes open and looked around. He was lying on the ground, near the car. Tony was sitting nearby, half in the suit, half out. It definitely looked like there had been a fight. But yet, there was one thing about this situation that didn’t match up.

“Tony?” he said weakly. “This is going to sound strange, but why do I still have pants?”

Tony didn’t answer directly. “How’s your head?”

“My…head?” Bruce tried to sit up, and suddenly Tony’s question made a lot of sense. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and a ferocious throbbing sensation started up, centered on the side of his head. He collapsed back down, but that only aggravated the pain in his side and shoulders. A small, involuntary noise like a deflating balloon escaped his mouth.

“Woah, take it easy,” Tony said, placing a surprisingly gentle hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “I’m pretty sure you have a concussion. Or something else awful, I don’t know.”

Bruce was about to point out that he didn’t _get_ concussions, not since the ‘other guy’ came into play. However, as he felt something wet drip down his ear, he was distracted by a much more distressing realization.

“Shit, Tony, I’m _bleeding_.”

Bruce tried again to get up and scramble away, this time actually making it a few feet before the pain and disorientation became too much to handle. “Shit, shit! We’ve got to decontaminate the area, and your suit…you’ve taken it off, what the hell? That was the only thing protecting you!”

He stopped short. “Wait. The suit’s off. You’ve touched it. And you’re…okay?” This situation just wasn’t adding up.

“Yeah, I’m fine, don’t stress yourself.” Tony helped situate Bruce into more of a seated position, propped up against the car. Bruce took note of Tony’s hands and yes, blood had touched bare skin. But there were no signs of blistering or even irritation. “Seriously, Bruce, last thing we need’s another incident.”

That wasn’t like Tony at all, to be cautious where the “other guy” was concerned. “But…the blood…”

“It’s all fine. JARVIS ran a scan, there’s no sign of radiation or toxicity or anything like that. The serum, the dumbass serum, it _worked._ ”

“No it didn’t” Bruce insisted. “I still changed.”

“Yeah, no, not really. Or yes. But no.” Tony rubbed his forehead. “ _You_ changed, your body didn’t”

Bruce leaned his head back against the car and groaned again. It still didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. It was giving him a headache. He reached up gingerly to touch the side of his head, but got a nasty surprise when he did so.

“Tony, I’m _bleeding_. Oh, god, tell me you didn’t touch it.”

The look on Tony’s face was completely incredulous. “I just…I _just_ explained that to you.” he said.

“Explained what?”

“The blood. I just said it was fine. And you…you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

Bruce shook his head. Bad idea. He closed his eyes and winced.

“Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t move.” Tony said. “I…your head got hit pretty hard.”

“I’m sure I’ve had worse.” Bruce said, eyes still closed. “The ‘other guy’ has taken some pretty bad hits.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t…oh, never mind.”

There was a long pause. Then, “I contacted SHIELD.” said Tony. “Didn’t know what else to do. I mean, you and I can’t exactly waltz into a normal hospital, can we? I figured this was better.”

“I don’t need to go to a hospital.” Bruce insisted. “I’m fine, it always hurts. I’m used to it.”

Tony’s brow furrowed. “Okay, ignoring that incredibly disturbing thing you just said… you _absolutely_ need to go to a hospital. You’ve probably- no, scratch that, _definitely-_ got a concussion, at the very least. And you’ve got the memory span of a goldfish.”

That last part sounded like an insult, but Bruce was too distracted to care. “Shit, Tony, I’m bleeding! How the hell…why…what…” 

He trailed off. Tony was making a face like he either wanted to laugh or to cry. Maybe both. “Relax. The blood’s fine. Well, I mean, it’s not _fine_ , you’re fucking bleeding from the head, but it’s not _toxic._ Just normal blood. Please don’t make me keep reminding you.”

“Right, right…” Bruce had no idea what Tony was talking about, but he was starting to agree about the hospital thing. “How’d I get a concussion? I _can’t_ get concussions.”

“First of all, I don’t want to know how you know that. Secondly, I highly doubt you’ll still remember in thirty seconds even if I tell you.”

Bruce leaned his head back against the car, carefully. The world spun anyways. “Tell me.”

Tony sighed. “I, uh, punched you really hard in the head. To knock you out.”

“…Why’d you want to knock me out?”

“Oh, for chrissakes.” Tony shook his head. “Look, just cooperate with the nice SHIELD agents when they get here, okay? I’ll explain shit to you when your brain’s not a sieve.”

“Fine.” Bruce said. At this point, he was starting not to care if he knew what was going on. Everything hurt, he felt sick, and he was _exhausted_ …

“Hey, wake up!”

Bruce hadn’t realized he’d stared to doze off until he opened his eyes to see Tony looking at him worriedly. “No sleeping. Stay with me.”

“Mhmm.” Bruce agreed, then closed his eyes again. The cycle repeated a few more times, with Bruce growing increasingly annoyed and Tony growing increasingly concerned. Fortunately, the SHIELD plane showed up soon thereafter. But Bruce, quite understandably, did not react well when the agents approached him and tried to carefully load him onto a stretcher. “What are you doing?” he said, panicked. “Stop it, stop it, get your hands off…”

The sudden change of position and the resulting change in equilibrium was more than Bruce could handle, and he vomited down the front of his shirt. This was potentially one of the more unpleasant positions he had found himself in, and that was saying a _lot_. He was exhausted, bloody, sick, and unable to keep SHIELD from taking him god-knows-where. His only reassurance was that Tony seemed to be okay with it. But then Tony was gone, and in his place was a strange doctor asking Bruce questions he couldn’t answer- questions like _do you know where you are_ and _do you know what happened._

“Please,” he begged. “Let me go. Don’t hurt me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

No one answered. Someone was hooking him up to an IV line- or trying to, at any rate. Bruce refused to cooperate. He couldn’t remember where Tony had gone. He didn’t know how he had gotten here. He didn’t even know where _here_ was, and every time he tried to open his eyes to look around a bright light stung his eyes and forced them closed again. All he had was a hazy awareness of the voices around him.

“This shouldn’t be so hard, he was barely conscious a few minutes ago.”

“Heart rate’s almost 180.”

“180? I don’t care what Stark said, I don’t want to risk it.”

“I’ll get a sedative.”

“Is that safe?”

“Safer than the alternative.”

The last thing he was aware of was struggling as someone held him down.

And then the voices faded out completely


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated. Not much, but a little bit. And also there were no reports. Point is, I'm back at writing for the first time in like eight months so brace yourself cause I don't know what I'm doing either.

_SHIELD Medical, late afternoon_

   “Mr. Stark? The doctor would like to speak with you.”

   “Fucking _finally_.” Tony snorted. He looked over at Clint and Natasha. “No offense, Spy Kids, it’s been great, but I gotta go.” He had arrived at the medical base not too long after Bruce had, not having been allowed on the plane, but they refused to let Tony see him then either. Which meant that the last image he had of Bruce was of him laying on a stretcher covered in all manner of blood, dirt, and vomit, struggling wildly against the agents trying to transport him.

   In short, not the best of looks.

   The doctor, a tall woman with a stern face, ushered Tony aside into a corner of the hallway. Every now and then a SHIELD worker would pass by, some uniformed, some in scrubs. Tony didn’t even wait until the two of them had stopped walking before opening his mouth.

“Is he okay? He doesn’t have brain damage or anything does he, cause the last I saw him he had the cognition of a hamster and was puking on a SHIELD agent, which, let me tell you, is not…”

“He’s stable.” The doctor said, putting her hand up in a _stop_ gesture. “We haven’t been able to do all the cognitive tests, but so far it doesn’t look like he’ll have any long-term damage. He’s doing better than expected, actually, given the damage done.” Tony cringed internally at that last part. “But,” she continued “That’s not what I came to talk with you about.” She pulled out the clipboard that she had had tucked under her arm. “The preliminary report you gave upon arrival was…interesting, to say the least. I was hoping to get some more information.”

“What’s there to say? He thought he was the Hulk. And he was pissed about still being in Bruce’s body. I swear, I did what I had to do. You weren’t there, you didn’t see…he was beating the shit out of himself and everything else, what else could I have done?”

“Well, SHIELD would have _preferred_ that the two of you inform someone before performing such a potentially dangerous experiment.”

“Hey, I told Pepper!”

“Mm-hmm.” The doctor sounded thoroughly unimpressed. She paused for a moment to write something down on the clipboard. Tony tried to look, but she covered it with her hand before he could see. “We would like you to fill out a more thorough incident report form as soon as possible” She leafed through the paper, pulled one out, and tried to hand it to him. “Here. Front and back. Sign on pages three and five.”

Tony didn’t take it, and instead crossed his arms over his chest. “Why should I? Neither of us are part of SHIELD.”

“Actually, due to the Avengers Initiative…” Tony cringed again, for a different reason. “…both of you technically _are_ affiliated with us. Also, while circumstances may be different, Banner’s case file here is still considered open and active.” She pushed the paper towards him once more. “Front and back. Sign on pages…”

Tony cut her off. “If I fill it out, will you let me see him?”

“I’m not sure that would be advisable, Mr. Stark. Dr. Banner may be doing better than expected, but in his current condition it’s still best that he not be disturbed.”

“I’m not going to _disturb_ him, for chrissakes. I just…I need to know he’s okay.” There was almost a hint of pleading at the end, which Tony quickly tried to cover up. “Anyway, it’s the only way you’ll get me to do that form.”

“I suppose you can see him.” she acquiesced. Tony couldn’t tell if it was his hard-headedness or soft-heartedness that won her over, but the result was the same. “I do have to warn you, though- he’s on quite a bit of pain medication, as well as a mild sedative. He might not…”

“Hang on, hang on. _Sedative_? What the hell did you sedate him for? Last time I saw he could barely _sit up_.”

“It was for his own protection,” she explained.

“Really.”

“So it surprises you that a man with Dr. Banner’s history, suffering from confusion and amnesia,  would have a…negative reaction to being examined by uniformed medics?”

For once, Tony didn’t say anything. He was mostly just trying _really_ hard not to think of all the reasons why Bruce would be terrified of SHIELD doctors.

There were a lot.

“…So I can see him?” he asked again after a pause.

“Room 104B, right down that hall. You can fill out the form when you’re done. Front and…”

“Yeah, yeah. Gotcha.” Tony snatched the incident report form from where she had set it back on her clipboard. “104B.”

He really wasn’t sure what to expect, seeing Bruce after what had happened. His mind kept going back to when he had left him, exhausted, confused, in pain. Maybe “mild sedation” could actually be an improvement. He found the room in short order, and knocked on the door before going inside even though it wasn’t all the way closed. Seemed the polite thing. Least you could do was try and be polite, he figured, after bashing someone’s head in.

His politeness, however, was beat out by impatience and therefore didn’t extend to actually waiting for a response before entering. Bruce was lying in a hospital bed, head propped up slightly, eyes half-lidded, brow furrowed slightly. He was bandaged and bruised to hell and back, and there was an IV tube connected to a needle in the crook of his right arm- an arm which, unsettlingly, had been strapped to the bed with padded cuffs. He looked up with mild alarm- though, at the moment “mild” was probably all that he could really muster- but his face softened into relief as soon as he saw who it was.

“Tony? You’re okay? Someone said…someone said you were here, with one of the doctors…they said I couldn’t see you.” His voice was croaky and hesitant, but at least he sounded more present than before. “…thought you were hurt, they wouldn’t let me see you, wouldn’t tell me how I got here.” His eyes closed for a moment, the frown reappearing on his face. “They took my blood, Tony, you’ve got to get it back, I don’t know what they’re planning.”

“Woah, easy there.” Tony pulled a small plastic chair over from the corner and situated it by Bruce’s bed so that he didn’t have to be standing over him. “Everything’s fine. Granted, that’s using a loose definition of ‘everything’ and an even looser definition of ‘fine’, but the point stands. Nobody’s planning anything.” He paused. “That’s not even using loose definitions, actually. Pretty sure no one knows what’s going on. Hell, I was _there_ and I don’t know what happened. But it’s…fine? I guess?” Tony wasn’t sure how you were supposed to reassure someone in a situation like this, but he was pretty sure this wasn’t the recommended way. Bruce, though, did seem to be put more at ease- although, he did keep glancing over at his right arm and tugging it experimentally against the straps.

They were done up tight, with very little give.

Tony kept talking, more trying to distract himself than Bruce at this point. “So, are _you_ okay? They wouldn’t let me see you either, some bullshit about not wanting you to be ‘disturbed’. Sticking you with needles, though, they think _that’s_ not disturbing you? Yeah, not sure how that…”

“Tony, just tell me what happened.” Bruce said bluntly. “I remember the ‘other guy’ came out, but no one’s said if anyone got hurt. Don’t know if they’re trying to spare me, or…” He trailed off, looking at the bandages on his hands. “Just tell me.”

Tony sighed. He had told the story probably a hundred times that day and would probably have to tell it a hundred more. “ The Hulk never showed. Or, he did, but…not. It was as if the Hulk was there, but with your body. Your _human_ body.” He shook his head. “Do you realize how _fragile_ the human body is? It’s so fucking fragile. And people ask why I build high-tech human armor.” He paused. “Does any of that, in any way, answer your question? I feel like it didn’t.”

Bruce closed his eyes. “Yeah, you could try rephrasing it a little.”

Tony paused, trying to think of a metaphor. “It’s like…a weird version of the Monkey’s Paw. Wish granted, “cure” worked, no more green goliath, no more gamma in your bloodstream. The catch is, your brain didn’t get the message. Magic-presto-alakazam, no one else gets hurt but _you_ damn near get killed.”

“Not a bad trade off,” Bruce mused.

“Aaaand we don’t have time to unpack all of that.” Tony glanced over to the open door, where a nurse had stopped to stand. They tapped their watch, looking pointedly at Tony. “Seriously? It’s been what, five minutes? Give us a _break_.”

The nurse shrugged, but didn’t leave the doorway. “Dr. Prader’s decision, not mine.”

“Goddamn agents.” Tony mumbled, getting up from the plastic chair. He took one more look over at Bruce, which was probably a mistake- the worried, almost pleading look on his face was enough to make anybody crack. “Look, I’ll come back, all right? It’ll be great, you’ll be less stoned.”

“I’ll be here.” Bruce gave one more tug on his arm restraints. “Not going anywhere.”


End file.
